Friday, January 1, 2010

First Friday Flashbacks


The older we get, the more our concept of 'wealth' changes. I feel sorry for the person that values money over everything else. They have missed the important lessons in life. Here is one of those lessons that taught me a heck of a lot.

First Published June 14, 2006

Meet Mr. Stage


28 Years Later


You don't know him. Chances are you won't meet him. You will probably never run into anyone like him. But you should. He could teach you a lot.

Mike was one of my best friends in High School. He was funny, had a bit of temper and was going to take on the world. We all were back then. We thought we knew everything. He married his High School sweetheart; they had a child and drove off into the sunset to make their way in the world. That was the last I ever saw of them. That was 1975. As I write this, it was over a quarter of a century ago.

During that quarter of a century, I went to college, held down about six jobs, got married, got divorced, took some wicked vacations and learned some valuable lessons from the school of hard knocks.

About three years ago I bumped into Mike's ex-wife on the internet. She had divorced Mike and remarried. She was living in Los Angeles with her 5 daughters. To my surprise she still knew where Mike was and gave me his address. On my next trip out to Southern California, I made a point to stop by and see him. I thought it would be a chance to re-live our youth one more time, but instead it showed me just how much our paths had differed.

After getting lost several times in LA traffic I finally pulled into an apartment complex parking lot and there he stood waiting for me. He looked the same. The years hadn't changed him that much. He was a little more wrinkled, his hair was a bit thinner, but it was the same old Mike. His smile told me that. After 5 minutes of catching up, we were right back where we had left off 25 years before. We still had that connection.

At first it appeared that Mike had fallen on hard times. But times are relative to those that live them. It was evident that Mike was happy. He wanted for nothing but also didn't have much. He had a minimum wage job, no savings, no car, no iPod, no Plasma television or broadband internet. But he didn't want them.

Mike hadn't listened to the announcers that preached the American Dream when we were growing up. Over time, his focus had shifted. His passion had become righting the wrongs of society. He was determined to be the lone man railing against the machine. He was the one that would stand in front of the column of advancing tanks and scream at them to go home. His uniform was denim, his resolution knew no fear, he expected no rewards.

When he wasn't answering phones in a call center, he spent his time with other like minded adults planning protests. Protests against police brutality, protests against the Iraq War, protests against big oil and big chemical. He gleefully related the time he was just missed by rubber bullets or how he had felt the sting of pepper spray on more than one occassion.

While listening to him passionately talk of the time he was beaten by the Los Angeles riot police or handcuffed in front of the county courthouse, it made me wonder about my life. The life that I thought was so successful and happy. What was I proud of? Was it my credit rating, my new car, my new plasma television? The more Mike and I talked, the less wealthy I felt.

Mike confided that he had been diagnosed with epilepsy several years earlier. He couldn't drive a car anymore, much less afford one. He wasn't really diligent about finding ways to pay for his medication either. He had blackouts and memory loss, but he managed to get back on track, eventually. But the more he talked, the more I realized that he didn't have a care in the world. It was all good. Life was a challenge. He was a fighter. He loved his daughters and the children that his ex-wife had with her new husband and looked forward to the days he could visit with them. Despite the fact that he had nothing, he had a passion for life.

We walked around Griffith Park that evening and then went out to dinner. We laughed and joked liked Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon. We were a team again, if just for that one night.

I said my goodbyes after dinner and drove back to Arizona the next day, but my time with Mike haunted me. I drove back to a rat race, where I wrestled with the pack and saved for that vacation in Mexico and the new car stereo. Meanwhile, in LA, Mike and his cohorts planned a protest against the death sentence handed down to a convicted teenage boy. Hard times are relative. The more I thought about it, the more I was envious of Mike's time.

5 comments:

  1. I appreciate your honest look at self examinination, defining our priorities and living with intention. All things that resonate so loudly inside my head. I applaud Mike's convictions and admire his choices.

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  2. Struck me as odd today, Bruce, that wwe were both reposting. You on blogger, and me on facebook. Not that we reposted, but that inadvertently our posts were on the same topic. FOrgive me for pasting my prattling here. But I am just proud that for a moment we were thinking alike. Here goes nothing:

    Six years ago, the last home my ex-wife and I shared, a home we considered a blessing, a home that may have actually saved my life; We loved it, and we loved living there. But it was a little over 5000 square feet, 7 bedroom, 3 bath. It had a two car garage, and was setup with a spot in the garage where we could power our home off of the power grid by generator. Yes, there were 2 large vans usually in the driveway, My wifes 10 year old mini van, and the company's 5 year old passenger van with wheelchair lift. I loved the home, the yard (even though the town we lived on imposed severe sanctions ($1000 fine) for the grass being longer than X number of inches. It was home to us, and we were thankful for it. Because of my wife's company, we were able to move in with no deposits, no rent, no utilities, which we guesstimated for that house would have cost us about 1800 a month Then because the upstairs became home to 6 elderly dementia patients as an Adult Family Home, my wife also collected a paycheck without ever actually leaving home. Add to this my piddly income, we were able to live large had we wanted to.... Instead we lived foolishly. In the end, the business was sold, we were divorced, and although not all at once, we lost all that we had owned together over time. Now each of us live in separate apartments, neither one as big as the living room of our old house, and we look back and wonder what happened? Funny how all the things we once thought so important, they just aren't important anymore. The things we lost? Gone forever and rarely missed. But now, I look back and think, How fortunate was I, during a time when blindsided by illness and surgery, medical expenses coming out my ears... how fortunate to have so much excess that wasn't even mine, had we not been in the situation, we would not have been able to afford medications, food, anything. We are very thankful for the blessings we receive in this life, and we are sorry we took them for granted. I just never really thought, did people look at this fat 30 something couple living in the huge house and think we were living in excess? Did we appear superficial and shallow? Or were we just lucky opportunists,in the right place,at the right time? We have a lot less now, but we are friends again, my ex and I. Her son just got married, and I inherited a new grand daughter. I live in a crappy little apartment with a friend I have known since high school, and sometimes cannot afford bus fare. But you know what? I think I am pretty freaken wealthy after all. I am so glad that this kind of wealth can't be taxed.

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  3. Daedak: The sad thing is, folks that are Wealthy Opportunists seldeom realize it, until they loose it all. Those have have never struggled, have never really lived at all.

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  4. wow, dae's post just threw me for a loop...

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  5. Wow! You really did an awesome post Lotus.

    Mike is wealthy because he is happy and doing what he loves.

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